Super-secrecy scandal spirals

“Where privacy and confidentiality are involved, a degree of secrecy is often necessary to do justice” stated Lord Neuberger as the report of his committee on super-injunctions was published last week. The Master of the Rolls added: “However, where secrecy is ordered it should only be to the extent strictly necessary to achieve the interests of justice. And, when it is ordered, the facts of the case and the reason for secrecy should be explained, as far as possible, in an openly available judgment.”

The committee, set up last April to examine concerns over the perceived growth of super-injunctions, warned the media to be careful when relying on Parliamentary privilege, saying that media stories that did not simply summarise or reprint Hansard “may well not” attract qualified privilege.

Super-injunctions and anonymised injunctions should only be granted where “strictly necessary”, should be kept under review and cannot be granted permanently, the committee said. There was no justification for fast-track appeals for super-injunctions, and the use of specialist judges for such applications was “neither justifiable nor practicable”.

Last week, the Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Stoneham used Parliamentary privilege to reveal details of an injunction obtained by former RBS head, Sir Fred Goodwin.

The use of a super-injunction by Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs to stifle rumours of an alleged affair with ex-Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas appeared to backfire at the weekend when he was identified by a Scottish newspaper and later named in Parliament by MP John Hemmings.

James Quartermaine, solicitor, sports & media group at Charles Russell, said: “The report of Lord Neuberger does not herald a tectonic shift in the law but it will hopefully provide a useful bedrock of fact and analysis from those best placed to judge how the system has actually been working in practice.

“The debate about so called ‘super’ injunctions has become increasingly hysterical and partisan in recent weeks and the report seeks to explode some of the myths that have been deliberately peddled on both sides of the debate. In particular it has suited both sides to propagate the myth that a new and virulent strain of injunction called the ‘super’-injunction has been stalking the courts in enormous numbers.

“The report seeks to lay that particular bogeyman to rest by giving a more precise definition of the term super-injunction, and the circumstances in which they can and have been granted.”